As usual, we’re rushed off our feet and we don’t think we’ll have enough time to arrange a live podcast this week. We’ll try our best to make it happen next time.

We’re hoping to meet up with Eben Upton and the Raspberry Pi team next week. So, for this episode’s Open Ballot question, we’d like to ask you what you’d like us to ask them. Do you want to know if they’re thinking of upgrading the hardware, for example, or when Eben’s darkest hour might have been whilst designing the Pi, or his thoughts on IT education in the UK? Let us know your questions and we’ll do our best to get some answers. We’ll also discuss our own thoughts in the podcast. Oh, and thanks for your continued patience with our terrible captcha!

In this episode: OpenSUSE 12.3 is out, Red Hat takes ownership of Java 6, SecureBoot is coming to FreeBSD and Ubuntu ditches Wayland for Mir. We report back on our challenge from a couple of episodes ago, come up with a new challenge, and discuss IT education in our Open Ballot.

Rapper William James Adams* has spoken out about IT education in the UK here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21747206. Infact, not only has he spoken about it, he's put his money where his mouth is and ponied up half a million quid to buy computers for disadvantaged youngsters.

What is Linux? We asked the question, and sent our reporter down into the depths of the OS to find out the answer.

But we didn’t stop there. We got a full Ubuntu system running on a Nexus 7, played games on Steam and chatted with Jacon Kaplan-Moss. As usual, we’ve got some great ways to spruce up your Linux system with tutorials ranging from building a smart TV with a Raspberry Pi to command-line music management.

In this episode: Canonical launches Ubuntu Touch for tablets. Steam has been officially released for Linux. LG has bought WebOS for its televisions. Tizen SDK 2.0 has been released and Mozilla says there's plenty of interest in its Firefox OS. Hear our discoveries and the interim results of our challenge, plus your own opinions in our internet famous Open Ballot.

As reported by Andrew on our own Twitter account yesterday, Canonical has announced that it is bringing its famous touch interface to tablets. Nexus-bound developer previews of silky smooth transitions will be available tomorrow - at the same time as its smartphone previews, and early videos and renders look pretty convincing. We want to know whether you think Canonical is living the dream, bringing to fruition devices that the Linux community has long lusted over - or do you think it’s all too little too late in the face of Android dominance? Let us know your thoughts and we’ll mingle them with our own when we record the podcast, either on Friday or Monday morning.

The official Linux Steam client has been released, and the company behind Steam is celebrating by offering some serious discounts on Linux titles. We thought we'd help you choose the best by plundering our own archives for reviews of games now available on Steam, and making them available to you for free!

In this episode: KDE 4.10 has been released and includes lots of Qt Quick enhancements. Ubuntu Phones are going to be available in October. Samsung laptops are breaking after a Linux installation and the 'Model A' Raspberry Pi is available now. Hear our discoveries, your own opinions in our Open Ballot and our brand new old section, Challenge Us!

We've been asked to help promote what looks like an incredible initiative. The Sonar Project hopes to fund the development of a Linux distribution focused on accessibility, and the campaign is looking to raise $20,000 through Indiegogo, a crowd funding site. But the project could also benefit from people with graphic design skills as well as those who can simply help spread the word.

Microsoft has been alienating its users by making pointless user interface changes, dropping support for its instant messenger app and not providing software that will play a DVD.

We can either: a) Point and laugh like Nelson the bully from The Simpsons; or b) show the poor, huddled masses of Windows users that there is a better way. Or, if you don't use Windows and don't know anybody who does, you can simply marvel at how much better off you are because you use Linux, and congratulate yourself on your sound judgement.

In this episode: Canonical is to launch a phone. Fedora 18 has been released. Friends of Gnome are looking for money and Valve is to make a Linux-powered games console. Hear our first discoveries of 2013 and how you'd like the podcast to improve in season 5.

It's (well into) the new year. Our hangovers have abated, and we're about to start work on the new series of the podcast.

As regular listeners will know, we've been following the same format for a while:

News,
Discovery of the week,
Rants and raves,
Speak your brains,
Open ballot

We want to refresh it a bit, so we thought we'd ask you, dear listeners, what new category you'd like to hear. Perhaps an old on that you'd like reinstated, or something new that you think would fit in with the TuxRadar style. Or perhaps you think we're perfect and wouldn't change a thing.

It’s a Minty-licious issue as we take a look at the leader of the Distrowatch charts, and ask how it came to be what it is today.

Linux Mint has redefined what it means to be a modern, sleek operating system and it's not even six years old. In recent years it's gained popularity by standing firm in the face of desktop change, but it's about much more than just an applications menu.

In this episode: Samba 4 and Linux 3.7 have been released. Raspberry Pi is auctioning off new models. Humble Bundle had a THQ special without Linux support, and THQ has since filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Valve's Steam console has been confirmed and the Linux Steam client is now an open beta.The Internet remains free but UK Pirate Party forced to shut their proxy server after pressure from BPI, and the Snooper's Charter is now uncharted. All this plus our discoveries, your brains, and the internet famous Open Ballot.

"Canonical is kicking off the New Year with a bang, and launching a brand new Ubuntu product. We’ll be holding an exclusive event hosted by Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu project, to give full details of what we believe is the next generation of cross platform operating system."

Usually press releases get redirected to /dev/null, but a guy dropping off a brown envelope full of non-sequential £20 notes little bird told us that this is going to be interesting. However, we don't know any more than this.

Sorry for the lack of updates. We're manically trying to finish 1.5 issues before Christmas. But we just wanted to let you know that, to coincide with the launch of Google Magazines in the UK, Linux Format is now available on Google's magazine store - £4.99 per issue, £3.99 with a rolling subscription or £44.99 for the year. As always, DVD images are freely downloadable from http://www.linuxformat.com/archives. Issue 166 (the zombie one) should also be available on the Ubuntu Software Centre.

In this episode: The UN wants to control the internets. Fedora 18 adds Mate and Cinnamon. Matthew Garrett creates a way to boot Linux from UEFI Windows 8 machines. There's lots more Apple/Samsung shenanigans and a Linux-powered autonomous boat swims almost 17000 kms to Australia. We discover things, rant about things, and listen to your opinions in the Open Ballot.

As promised in this week's Open Ballot (and thanks for your fantastic contributions), here's our own distro contest from issue 162 of Linux Format magazine.

Our annual distro competition is as close to a tradition as we get here at LXF Towers. We do it because we love distributions – we love their variety and the way that so much changes over the course of a year. If you want to see what conclusions we came to last year, for example, check out our previous feature, The best Linux distro of 2011.

But if we restricted our comparisons to the same old dominant stalwarts, our yearly parade of victors would look more like political oscillation than a reflection of Linux distribution development. Which is why this year we wanted to do something different...